The sun had begun to dip behind the hills, casting long, golden shadows across the dirt path ahead of us. The wind had picked up slightly, rustling the tall grass on either side of the road like a thousand whispering voices. We were still a decent walk from the next town, with only open fields and sparse trees lining the way. It was quiet… too quiet.

  Then, without warning, Nielle’s arm shot out in front of me, halting our casual stride. Her expression had shifted in an instant, from pyful and rexed to sharp and serious. The others froze too, falling into a practiced formation that suddenly reminded me they weren’t just a goofy group of adventurers. They were professionals. Survivors.

  “There,” Kael murmured, pointing down the path.

  I followed his line of sight and saw her.

  She stood alone in the middle of the road, like she'd been waiting for us the whole time. A girl, no older than we were, maybe even younger. Her dress was deep crimson, yered in ruffles that looked oddly pristine for someone out in the middle of nowhere. Long, flowing hair, as bck as a raven’s wing, danced in the breeze around her. And at first gnce, she could have passed for a noble’s daughter lost on the road… if not for the unmistakable bck horns curling from either side of her head and the flick of a spaded tail behind her.

  Demon.

  She smiled when she saw us. Not sweetly. Not cruelly. Just… knowingly. Like she’d already read the next five pages of our story and wasn’t in a hurry to catch the rest.

  “Well, this feels nostalgic,” she said, her voice as soft as velvet but with the chill of frost beneath it. “A bunch of armed humans and a fox girl in disguise. What a lively day this is.”

  My heart skipped. She knows.

  Wynne subtly raised her staff, fingers twitching with silent runes. Kael was already a shadow off to the side, daggers ready. Rell knocked an arrow but didn’t raise it. Nielle tightened her grip on her axe but didn’t move forward yet.

  “Who are you?” she asked, voice firm but calm. “And what do you want?”

  The girl tilted her head at the question, as though amused by the idea that introductions still mattered out here in the wilds, where danger often wore a friendly face and names were rarely given in good faith.

  “Names are such clumsy little things,” she said, her voice a gentle mockery, like a lulby sung by someone who knew exactly how it ended. “But if it comforts you… you may call me Chiisana.”

  Her eyes lingered on each of us in turn, Kael, hiding in the periphery like smoke; Wynne, calcuting; Rell, torn between caution and curiosity; Nielle, coiled like a spring; and then… me. Her gaze lingered.

  I felt it, like a thread tugging something deep inside me. Not magic exactly, but something colder, older. Like she was flipping through the pages of my soul the way one reads a diary left too long unattended.

  “And what I want…” she murmured, that smile deepening into something more private, “is still undecided.”

  “Wrong answer,” Nielle growled, stepping forward a fraction, her axe shifting just slightly in her hands. “You don’t just appear out of nowhere and talk in riddles unless you’re looking for trouble.”

  “Perhaps I am trouble,” Chiisana replied sweetly, pcing a finger to her lips. “But not for you, axe-bearer. You… you’re not the one I came for.”

  Chiisana vanished from the road in a flicker of shadows. No chant, no fsh of light, no dramatic swirl of magic. Just… gone, like a switch had flipped and reality had quietly rewritten itself to erase her from existence.

  The space she’d been standing in shimmered faintly, then settled like nothing had ever been there at all. But I felt her. Before I could even process the disappearance, her presence closed in from behind like the slow coil of a predator’s breath brushing the nape of my neck. The air turned heavy, saturated with a cold, unnatural stillness that prickled every hair on my skin.

  I whirled around instinctively, heart hammering, but I was too slow. She was already there. Right there, standing with an eerie calm that made her sudden closeness all the more jarring. Her face was just inches from mine, and her gaze locked to mine with that same unreadable glint: equal parts amusement, curiosity, and something deeper… darker. Her breath was soft but sharp, ced with something I couldn’t name. Something old.

  "I can smell it..." she breathed, voice trembling with a twisted kind of reverence. Her shes lowered as she leaned in, inhaling deeply like she was savoring the bouquet of some rare wine. "The rotten core of an ancient bck dragon... festering inside you like a sleeping curse. How exquisite."

  My spine locked up. My hands moved before my brain caught up, shoving her head away with a double-handed push that was more reflex than thought. She didn’t resist. In fact, it was like pushing mist. Her head tilted back easily, lips still curled into that maddening smile, as if the act only amused her further. I took a stumbling step back, finally able to breathe properly again. The cold pressure eased just slightly, but the unsettling weight of her presence didn’t fully retreat.

  "Personal space, please?!" I muttered, trying to sound annoyed, not shaken. I didn’t quite succeed.

  The others, to their credit, hadn’t screamed or broken ranks but their expressions told another story. Kael’s sharp eyes flicked rapidly between us, noting terrain, obstacles, escape routes. Anything. Wynne was frozen mid-step, her staff half-lifted, lips parted like she’d been about to speak but lost the words entirely. Rell’s face had gone pale, his bow sagging as he stared with wide eyes that screamed nope. And Nielle… Nielle just cocked one brow high enough to vanish into her bangs, watching with a mixture of confusion and growing unease.

  “I was feeling so down earlier,” Chiisana said lightly, as if we were catching up at a teahouse instead of sharing an uncanny standoff on a quiet country road. She began to circle me slowly, each step deliberate and graceful, her presence brushing against mine like static. “Some of the wyverns escaped my hunt. Can you believe it? Slippery little things. Honestly, I was about ready to call it a day and go sulk in a shadow pit somewhere. But now…” She leaned in close again, nose nearly brushing my shoulder as she inhaled with exaggerated delight. “Now this? This is so worth it.”

  I edged back, trying not to bolt outright. There was something deeply wrong about how fascinated she was, like she wasn’t just interested in me, but something inside me that I didn’t even fully understand yet.

  “Um… Miss Mashiro…” Wynne’s voice came out in a tight, papery whisper. Her eyes flicked toward me, full of sympathy and arm.

  “This is bad,” Kael muttered under his breath, barely audible even to those closest. His hands twitched by his sides. “That demon girl… she’s just like Mashiro. I can’t see her stats at all. She doesn’t even register.”

  “So uh…” Rell’s voice wavered, and he lifted one hand like he was volunteering for the world’s worst group project. “This is… one of those situations where we run, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Kael said immediately, already turning. “Adventurer Rule #1: If the monster’s smiling, you’re the joke.”

  “So, anyway, Miss Mashiro,” Nielle said quickly, giving me a thumbs up that somehow managed to be both encouraging and apologetic. She was already stepping back. “You got this. We’ll just, uh, clear the path for you.”

  “We’ll notify the Adventurer Guild!” Wynne added with an enthusiastic nod, too enthusiastic. Her boots were already halfway through a pivot. “Hang on until they send reinforcements, okay?!”

  “Wait, you guys—!” I protested, arm outstretched, but they were already moving. No hesitation. All four vanished into the underbrush like they’d rehearsed this. I heard Nielle shout, “Go, go, go!” as they crashed through the foliage, leaving me standing alone in a silence that now felt way too intimate.

  Chiisana watched their retreat with mild interest, her expression unreadable. Then she turned her eyes back to me, slow and deliberate, her smile returning like the calm before a storm.

  “Humans are such nervous creatures,” she murmured, amused. She csped her hands behind her back and took a single step closer, tilting her head slightly to the side. “So quick to run from what they don’t understand. But you’re still here. That’s interesting.”

  I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. The wind had stopped entirely. Even the grass around us seemed to hold its breath.

  “Now then… Mashiro, was it?” she said, voice soft and coaxing. “Why don’t we have a little chat… just the two of us?”